Chapter 13
“His Grace sends his regrets, my lady. He was called away on urgent business this morning.”
Hartley’s expression remained perfectly neutral as he delivered the news. Behind him, Mrs. Palmer hovered near the base of the stairs, her hands folded primly at her waist.
Sophia’s stomach dipped. She had not seen Edward since the ball, since the balcony, since the kiss that had consumed her waking thoughts and invaded her dreams. Part of her had dreaded this visit, and she had steeled herself for the awkwardness of facing him.
Another part, a treacherous part she refused to examine, had hoped for it.
Now she felt only disappointment, sharp and unwelcome.
“I see.” She arranged her features into a pleasant smile. “Thank you, Hartley. I trust Oliver is still expecting me?”
“Indeed, my lady. He has spoken of little else since breakfast.” A ghost of warmth flickered across the butler’s face. “Mrs. Palmer will escort you to the schoolroom.”
Sophia followed the nursemaid up the familiar staircase. The house felt different without Edward’s looming presence, quieter somehow, less charged. She told herself she was relieved.
She did not believe herself for a moment.
“Sophia!”
Oliver launched himself across the schoolroom the moment she appeared in the doorway. She caught him and swung him into her arms, breathing in the sweet, clean scent of him.
“Hello, darling.” She pressed a kiss to his hair. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.” He pulled back and studied her face with serious blue eyes. “You promised we would paint together. I remembered.”
“So did I.” She set him down and produced the small bundle she had brought. “I brought watercolors. Have you ever painted with them?”
Oliver’s eyes went wide. He shook his head, already reaching for the small wooden box with eager fingers.
They settled at the small table in the center of the room, Mrs. Palmer taking up her customary position near the window with her mending.
Sophia spread out sheets of paper and opened the box, letting Oliver examine each cake of color with the reverence of a treasure hunter surveying his hoard.
She prepared two brushes and a small cup of water.
“What should we paint?” Sophia wet her brush and touched it to the green. She began filling in the outline of a tree.
“A garden.” Oliver dipped his brush in yellow. “Mama had a garden at our house. With roses and little paths and a bench where she liked to read.”
Sophia’s hand stilled on the paper. “I remember. She used to write to me about it. She said you helped her plant the daffodils.”
“I dug the holes.” Pride colored his voice. “Papa said I was a natural gardener.”
“I am certain you were.” Sophia resumed her sketch, adding leaves to the tree. “Your papa loved that garden. He wrote to me once that it was his favorite place in the world because your mama had made it beautiful.”
Oliver fell silent. He pressed his brush hard against the paper, painting a circle that was probably meant to be the sun.
“Sophia?” His voice came smaller now. “Did Mama ever talk about me? In her letters?”
“All the time.” Sophia set down her pencil and turned to face him fully. “She told me when you said your first word. When you took your first steps. When you learned to stack blocks and knock them down again. She was so proud of you, Oliver. You were the light of her life.”
Oliver’s lower lip trembled. He looked down at his drawing. “I don’t want to forget her.”
“You won’t forget her.” Sophia set down her brush and covered his small hand with hers. “I will help you remember. We can talk about her whenever you like. I will tell you all the stories I know.”
“Uncle Edward doesn’t like to talk about her.” Oliver’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Or about Papa. He gets a sad face and leaves the room.”
Sophia’s chest tightened. She thought of the duke’s rigid control, the way he flinched at Jane’s name, the walls he had built so high and so thick that even a grieving child could not scale them.
“Your uncle loved your papa very much.” She chose her words carefully. “Sometimes, when people lose someone they love, it hurts too much to talk about them. It does not mean he doesn’t care. It means he cares so much that the words get stuck.”
Oliver considered this. “The words get stuck?”
“Yes. Like when you have a big feeling inside you, and it is too big to come out.”
“I get those sometimes.” Oliver nodded slowly. “Big feelings that make my chest hurt.”
“I know, darling.” Sophia squeezed his hand. “I get them, too.”
They returned to their painting. Oliver filled his paper with flowers and sunshine, a bright garden that existed only in memory. Sophia painted beside him, adding details he suggested, letting him guide the creation of a world where his parents still lived, and his heart remained unbroken.
When the hour ended, Oliver clung to her as always, extracting promises of another visit, another painting session, another story about his mama. Sophia hugged him tight and whispered reassurances into his hair, feeling the familiar ache of loving a child she could not keep.
She left Heatherwell House with Oliver’s painting tucked carefully into her reticule and a heaviness in her chest that had nothing to do with the absent duke.
Nothing at all.
“Auntie Sophia! Auntie Sophia! Look what we made!”
Nancy and Rosie descended upon her the moment she entered the parlor, their small hands brandishing paper crowns decorated with an alarming quantity of paste and feathers.
“We are princesses!” Nancy thrust a crown toward her. “This one is for you. Now you can be a princess too.”
“I’m honored.” Sophia accepted the crown and placed it solemnly on her head. Several feathers drifted to the floor. “How do I look?”
“Beautiful!” Rosie clapped her hands. “Now we need to find you a prince.”
Alice coughed into her hand. Sophia felt heat creep up her neck.
“Princes are overrated,” she said. “I would rather have a dragon.”
The twins gasped with delight and immediately began debating what color dragon would be most suitable. Thomas appeared in the doorway with his own paper crown perched at a rakish angle.
“Ladies.” He bowed with exaggerated formality. “The royal menagerie requires inspection. Who will accompany me to ensure the stuffed animals are properly fed?”
“Me! Me!” The twins abandoned their dragon discussion and raced toward their father, who scooped them up with practiced ease.
He caught Alice’s eye over their heads and nodded almost imperceptibly. Then he carried the girls out of the parlor, their excited chatter fading as they disappeared down the corridor.
Alice patted the cushion beside her. “Sit. You look like you have not slept in days.”
Sophia sank onto the settee and removed the paper crown, setting it carefully on the table. “I haven’t. Not properly.”
“Tell me.” Alice took her hand. “Whatever it is, I can see it eating at you.”
The words caught in Sophia’s throat. She had come here intending to confide, had rehearsed the confession a dozen times on the carriage ride. But now, faced with Alice’s gentle concern, the truth felt too large, too dangerous to speak aloud.
“The Duke of Heatherwell kissed me.”
Alice went still. Her grip tightened on Sophia’s hand. “When?”
“At the ball. On a balcony.” Sophia stared at her lap. “We were hiding from some ladies who might have discovered us alone together, and then we were not hiding anymore, and then he was kissing me, and I was kissing him back, and it was…”
She trailed off. There were no words sufficient to describe what it had been.
“And then?” Alice prompted.
“And then he apologized.” The bitterness in her own voice surprised her. “He said he shouldn’t have done it, and I agreed. We called it a mistake.”
“Was it?”
Sophia looked up. Alice’s eyes held no judgment, only curiosity and the steady warmth of long friendship.
“I don’t know.” The admission scraped from somewhere deep. “It should have been. He is impossible. Rigid. Cold. He barks at a grieving child and lectures museum visitors about ancient architecture. He has no idea how to connect with Oliver, and he refuses to even speak of Leonard and Jane.”
“But?”
Sophia pressed her palms to her cheeks. They burned beneath her fingers. “But the kiss was… Alice, it was unlike anything I have ever experienced. This was fire and need and something I cannot even name. I felt it everywhere. I wanted more. I wanted—”
She stopped. Drew a breath.
“I have always dreamed of being kissed like that.” Her voice became quieter now.
“Of being wanted like that. But I imagined it would be with someone kind. Someone warm. Someone who smiled easily and made me laugh. Not a man who looks at me like I am a puzzle he cannot solve and a problem he cannot escape.”
Alice was silent for a long time. “Perhaps,” she said finally, “the man we imagine is not always the man we need.”
“The Duke is not the man I need.” Sophia shook her head. “I am supposed to find him a wife, not become entangled with him myself.”
“And yet, you are entangled.”
“I cannot afford to be.” Sophia pulled her hands from her cheeks and straightened her spine.
“We are not well-suited. Our characters are completely opposite. He wants a proper duchess, someone with impeccable lineage and a spotless reputation. Not a woman who sneaks through London at night and runs a secret matchmaking enterprise to pay her father’s debts. ”
“Does he know about that?”
“He knows I am Lady Fairhart. He does not know about Drakeston.” Sophia’s voice hardened on the name. “And he never will. If he knew the full extent of my family’s disgrace, whatever attraction he feels would evaporate in an instant.”
Alice squeezed her hand. “You do not know that.”
“I know enough.” Sophia met her friend’s eyes. “The kiss was a moment of madness. Nothing more. I will keep my distance from now on. I will find him a suitable bride, fulfill my end of the arrangement, and move on with my life.”
“And if your heart has other ideas?”
Sophia thought of Oliver’s drawing, still tucked in her reticule. Of the duke’s hands on her face, his mouth claiming hers, the sound he made when she pulled him closer. Of the ache that had settled beneath her ribs and refused to fade.
“My heart doesn’t have a say.”
Alice looked at her for a long moment. Then she sighed and pulled Sophia into a hug.
“Oh, my dear,” she murmured against Sophia’s hair. “The heart always has its say. The question is whether we listen.”
Sophia closed her eyes and let her friend hold her. She did not have an answer.
She was uncertain that she wanted one.